Following Jesus is about relationship, not religion. Believing in Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us, is unlike any religion of man. Jesus Himself, is not like any man that has ever lived.
First, even though Jesus is fully man, the Bible also describes Him as fully God. One of the mysteries of the Universe is how the infinite God of the Universe could contain Himself within the body of a human being.
It was impossible that Jesus could offer His life in exchange for all of our lives, unless He became one of us, a man redeeming mankind.
Second, according to the pattern laid out in the Old Testament, all sacrifices offered to God must be perfect, without spot or blemish. Jesus, living as God in Human flesh, would have to undergo all the same trials and temptations that each one of us experience, yet for His entire life, He must be without sin.
If Jesus had succumbed to any sin at any time, He would have been disqualified from being our Savior. The Father demanded perfection of Jesus as our Sacrifice, just as He demands perfection of everyone who will be admitted into Heaven.
This is the reason that Jesus must have been born of a Virgin as predicted in the Old Testament. If Jesus was conceived by the normal process of human conception, he would have inherited the sin nature from Adam that all of us possess, disqualifying Jesus to be anyone’s savior. Because Mary conceived by the Holy spirit, Jesus was missing the sin nature of man, and could be the Savior, if He maintained an entire life of sinlessness.
This makes Jesus far superior to any other man or woman or religion which claims to have the power to grant eternal life. Jesus is the only man to ever live a perfect sinless life.
No one during Jesus life was ever able to attribute any sin to Jesus at any time.
John 8:46
(Jesus speaking) Which of you convicts Me of sin?
1Peter 1:18-19
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Peter understood that the Old Testament requirement of God was that the sacrifice had to be perfect.
Only Jesus was perfect in all of His 33 1/2 years upon the earth. No other man that has ever lived can match that record, therefore there is no one else qualified to be the Savior of the World. This is why we do not follow a Religion, a Church or any other person, we follow the perfect, spotless Jesus.
In both the Old and the New Testaments, Jesus is described as being “God in Human Flesh”.
Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
600 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah describes Jesus as being both “A Son”. Before Jesus was given to us as “A Child”, he had already been the Son of God for all of Eternity.
Jesus was not just a Son, Isaiah says, He is also called “Mighty God”. It was correctly understood that when the Savior came into the world, He would be God Himself, offering His life for us.
In the New Testament, as Paul is writing to the new Hebrew Christians in the Book of Hebrews, this is how Paul describes Jesus:
Hebrews 1:5
For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son
Therfore Jesus is NOT and Angel, nor was He ever an Angel.
Hebrews 1:8
But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
The verse above in Hebrews 1:8, the Father calls the Son, God, interesting.
In John Chapter 10 the Pharisees took up stones to kill Jesus and He asks them “For which of the things He had done are they desiring to kill Him…”
John 10:32-33
32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
Did you get that?
The Pharisees took up stones to kill Jesus because they understood that He was claiming to Be God in Human flesh.
So, for anyone that says that Jesus never claimed to be God, or that this doctrine is not taught in the Bible, that Jesus is the Eternal God, this verse proves that Jesus believed He was God, and John who wrote the eye witness testimony of Jesus also believed that Jesus is God.
When Paul wrote to the Colossians, it was to correct the teaching of some who had come into the church there and also claimed that Jesus was not God. Listen to how Paul describes Jesus in Colossians 1, verse 16:
Colossians 1:16
For by Jesus all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him
In order for Jesus to be able to be the One who created “All Things”, He would have been in existence before “All Things”, Jesus is not a created being, He is the Eternal God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Paul repeatedly taught the fact that Jesus is unlike any other man, He is God:
Titus 2:13
Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
1Timothy 2:5
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
This is why Jesus is the Only way to Heaven, because only Jesus was without sin, God in Human flesh, and why the sacrifice of His life as the eternal God was valuable enough to save every person who ever lived on the earth.
